


if you're still breathing you're the lucky ones ('cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs)

by starlightswait



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Coda, Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Gen, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:55:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27986520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightswait/pseuds/starlightswait
Summary: The recommended dosage caps at three. Sam takes four for good measure and downs the water in two big gulps.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Miracle the Dog & Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	if you're still breathing you're the lucky ones ('cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs)

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I'm several weeks late but I honestly don't think I care anymore?
> 
> 2\. I think I was more okay with the finale than a lot of people were (even if that's largely because the bar was SO LOW), but I still wish the dreariness of the situation had been a little more present. This is that, I guess? This is very short and has no dialogue, except for a brief flashback quote. Apologies if that's not your thing, but it's what I set out to write and I think I like it!
> 
> 3\. It's set like. Right when Sam gets back from the rusty nail dilemma, but before he sets out to Leave The Bunker Forever. I just had this small moment stuck in my head, and so a very quiet and unresolved moment-of-grief ridden fanfic was born.
> 
> 4\. Sam's not in an Amazing Headspace, but I honestly don't think there's anything super trigger-y in it? But nonetheless, be careful, and let me know if there's a warning I should add!
> 
> 5\. Have fun reading!
> 
> P.S. I didn't tag Dean because he's not actually in the story physically, but he is present in the emotional core of the fic.
> 
> P.S. Part Two. I realize now that I think Sam received the box from Jenny way back in home, but since it's probably not actually the same one in the actual show, we can just assume that Sam decided he wanted a new one. Maybe the old one broke or something. I shan't rewrite the section!
> 
> P.S. Part Three. The fic title is a lyric from Youth by Daughter! Good song. Such wow.

He gets back late, though he doesn’t bother pulling up the time on his phone. Sam hears the low whine of a dog and acquiesces as Miracle reaches to sniff at his hands, though he jerks back just a fraction when he remembers the blood that has dried on them.

Distantly, he thinks that he should find Dean’s stash of dog food (once they’d arrived back at the bunker, chests feeling lighter than they had in years, maybe ever), Dean had declared the need for it.“Only the best for Miracle, Sammy, he deserves it,” and though Sam didn’t know where his brother had found the energy to be so animated, he agreed easily, and after a few hours’ rest and wash, they’d found a Petco a little less than two hours out of Lebanon. Sam chose, out of sheer self-preservation, not to comment on the fact that making that drive every time they ran out of the stuff would be less than convenient. He had reasoned with himself that they could always pick something up on the way back from a hunt, and said nothing more on the matter.

Now, Sam needs a shower, and a painkiller wouldn’t hurt while he’s at it. While in the kitchen, he thinks of raiding their (his, he supposes) store of mid-tier whiskey, thinks of turning his soft muted grief into something sharper, more desperate. He can practically hear Dean’s voice, his whiskey-slick giddy pounding laughter. A moment of consideration, and then Sam pours a glass of tinny tap water instead and lets Miracle follow him to his room, doesn’t even shoo him away when he leaps onto Sam’s bed, all floppy-eared and with big wet eyes. There’d have been a time, maybe, when Sam would have sobbed his grief out into Miracle’s fur, been able to take comfort in the love of an animal that doesn’t know what loving a Winchester gets it. But now, he scratches behind his ear almost perfunctorily, pats him twice on his left cheek, and leaves for his nightstand. Dean, despite his deep care for his worldly possessions, was more prone to clutter than Sam has ever been. So Sam knows exactly where the rattling bottle of ibuprofen stands in his drawer and doesn’t have to rustle through it at all. In this top drawer, there’s only the bottle, a pistol with the safety switched on, and a number of black pens with the tips chewed (a bad habit leftover from his teen years.) The second drawer is dedicated largely to borderline threadbare faded undershirts, bought mostly at second-hand apparel stores and clearance sections. There’s also a stack of pictures featuring bad bowl cuts and people Sam loves who might be alive if it weren’t for him. In the bottom drawer, there’s only one thing - a pretty wooden box he’d found at a flea market, right after Dean had been sent to Purgatory and Sam had driven as far as he could, practically unblinking, feeling unreal. It doesn’t feel the same as then, exactly - he’s sad but in a way that feels fuzzy and warm and there’s static buzzing in his brain but if anything, it’s too real - but still. In the box, there are more photographs, an old baseball, a pamphlet from that old folks home, a bracelet of Jessica’s he’d pocketed way back when he first left Stanford with Dean and hasn’t been able to part with, and a zippo lighter. There’s more, too, but Sam’s not sure he feels like going down memory lane right now. Later. There will be a lot of that later, he thinks.

Sam pulls out the drawer and reaches for the ibuprofen. The recommended dosage caps at three. Sam takes four for good measure and downs the water in two big gulps.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you... enjoyed? Found it cathartic? I don't know. Feed the sweet validation consuming monster that lives in my brain via the comment section, if you so desire.
> 
> Come shout at me on my spn sideblog, @howboutsastiel! My main is @tvtropesfemme if you want to check me out there, too.


End file.
